News from the Votemaster

The DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting was discussed here at
length yesterday.

Yesterday, Hillary Clinton won a landslide victory over Barack Obama in Puerto Rico, getting 68% of the vote
to his 32%, a much better showing than expected. On the other hand, turnout was light, with only 380,000
people voting. Some people had predicted over 1 million voters. Clinton swept both men and women, all
age groups, all education levels, everything. It was a dramatic win. far more than expected. She will probably
net about 21 pledged delegates.

In the May 28
posting, we looked at
how Montana's 16 pledged delegates are allocated.
Now the final state, South Dakota, which gets to send 23 delegates to Denver as follows.

Most likely, Barack Obama will get 5 district-level delegates to Hillary Clinton's 4 and the at-large and
PLEOs will split 50-50. So all in all, Obama is likely to pick up 8 pledged delegates to Clinton's 7.

Has the media treated the candidates fairly or have they play favorites? A study from Harvard University
analyzed
thousands of stories from newspapers, radio, broadcast TV, cable TV, and the Internet. They also charted how
the media's views changed over time. One conclusion: Up until March 9, the media were equally positive about
Obama and Clinton and somewhat more negative about McCain. The report has many other conclusions, of course.

It looks like we have candidates for NY-13.
In case you have forgotten, this is the Staten Island district currently represented by Vito Fossella (R),
who supports family values so much he has two families, one on the Island and one in Virginia. When he was
stopped for running a red light--while drunk--this little tidbit came out and as the tabloids put it:
Vito finito. Talking Points Memo has a
story
claiming that the Democrats have settled on city councilman Michael McMahon. The Republicans couldn't get
any of their top prospects
to run
and finally settled on a businessman, Frank Powers, who is able to self fund
the race. The district is D+1, New York City is a pretty liberal place generally, this is going to be
a Democratic year for congressional races, and historically, rich businessmen rarely beat elected politicians
in closely fought races. Undoubtedly DCCC chairman Chris Van Hollen is whipping out his checkbook (he has
$46 million to spend on House races). New York state is going to host a surprisingly large number of top-tier
House races, including NY-19, NY-20, NY-25, NY-26, and NY-29 besides this one.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) noted the opening of the hurricane season
yesterday by
predicting
a 65% chance of a stronger than usual season
and only a 10% chance of a weaker than usual season.
So what has that to do with the elections? A hurricane along the Gulf Coast could drive gas prices to $5 or even $6
a gallon. Such a development would focus the voters' attention on the economy.
All the polls show that more voters have faith in the Democrats than in the Republicans to handle the economy well.
Consequently, a big hurricane could help the Democratic Party. On the other hand, if the administration can respond
to it really well, it might undo people's memories of how the aftermath of hurricane Katrina was bungled.

No primary polls today but we have some general election polls as follows.

State

Clinton

McCain

Start

End

Pollster

Louisiana

40%

47%

May 28

May 28

Rasmussen

Massachusetts

60%

30%

May 29

May 29

Rasmussen

State

Obama

McCain

Start

End

Pollster

Louisiana

41%

50%

May 28

May 28

Rasmussen

Massachusetts

51%

38%

May 29

May 29

Rasmussen

Nebraska

40%

49%

May 16

May 18

SurveyUSA

The polling data base was double checked today and some errors were found. These have been corrected.

They may affect some of the states on the map. Sorry for the inconvenience.

The delegate situation is quite different now than in was Friday. On Saturday, the DNC Rules
and Bylaws Committee decided to seat the delegates elected in the Florida primary each with half a vote.
It also decided to accept a compromise for Michigan proposed by the Michigan Democratic party. The
compromise took into account the fact that nearly all the votes for "uncommitted" were probably for
Obama as well as 5% of the voters who wrote in Obama's name. On Sunday, Clinton won a massive victory
in Puerto Rico and netted over 20 delegates. All in all, she closed the delegate gap by about 45 delegates.
If we average all the numbers below, Clinton has 1913 delegates to Obama's 2070 with 252 delegates yet
to be determined. Tuesday Montana will choose 16 pledged delegates and South Dakota will choose 15. A likely
breakdown is 14 for Clinton and 17 for Obama, bringing the totals to 1927 for Clinton and 2087 for Obama.
With 221 supers still sitting on the fence, Clinton will need 191 of these (86%) and Obama will need 31 of these (14%).
Some supers may endorse today as a result of the RBC decision and many more may get off the fence later this week.